I would think a simple limit on the amount of piety though life steal you can get per monster would help curve bonus. Something like 1 hit per monster for 1-2 piety a hit.

Additionally I would also limit life steal to never steal more than the amount of damage you do, while still allowing overkill damage to count, making it a valid strategy to leave low level monsters to help heal you a bit during the boss fight, much in the same way paladins recover 1/2 their health when killing undead.

If you max out life steal (at 90 with the vamperic blade) with 20 health regen (if monk) from rediscovering him even time he blinks and hides, you end up gaining 5 more life than he takes away (105). As long as you have around 175 max HP the 40% of the top he takes away still puts you above 105. After that its a tedious grind of following him around. Do leave up a few npcs, as if he jumps right next to you, he won't hide and you will need to drain some life from one of them in that case.

--On another note just killed avatar with this strat, except I used a wizard, as a monk was a bit too low damage to work well against the final boss. Used drac to get max life steal and close to max +mana boon. Switched to tiki so I could use the healing glyph against the final boss (tiki did punish me, but giving 1st strike doesn't do much. Drac punishment for using healing would have been devastating, taurag hates magic, glowing guardian hates life stealing, and the magic god just wasn't there).

Never found the vampiric blade, so I can't prepare it. I'm stuck with just what I can max out from Dracul himself. Still works, just even more tedious. I have to hit him, go get life drained, reveal him, hit a different vampire to heal up, then hit him again. Rinse and repeat.

Drac punishment for using healing would have been devastating, taurag hates magic, glowing guardian hates life stealing, and the magic god just wasn't there).

The current lineup of deities is really restrictive on tactics based on HALPMEH, CYDSTEPP, or APHEELSIK. Combine one of these glyphs with any other restriction - like lifesteal in this case - and you'll be lucky if you have a single viable god available for worship.

Actually, I'm a little worried about CYDSTEPP in that regard. If Jehora still dislikes this glyph, that means three deities directly punish you for using this glyph, and Taurog renders it unusable by reducing mana below 10. Since the Pactmaker is no longer directly worshippable, that leaves only four gods that approve of CYDSTEPP, less than half the pantheon.

Just gonna throw this in here. I beat this dungeon with Turog, the trisword, the really big sword (converted about half way into fighting the big slime, AFTER I beat the big meat man). I also switched from turog to GG I think, after I took out all of the low level baddies at the end of the game. There was no dracul in the dungeon.

I converted couple glyphs and got turogs +10 sword right off, plus the monks +dmg. I was able to kill a level 3 meat man, then a level 5 or 6. After a few other kills (not shying from the green meat men - who cares about mana burn, plus the 25% phys resistance is nullified), I picked up the armor and was level 6, I had plenty to explore so I killed the lvl 10 meat man by hit and run. By the end though, I had to use GG's healing boon and all of the health pots on the level to beat the goo.

I would suggest making the lifesteal boon cost 25 piety and increase by 25 piety each use (i.e., so that it can only be used four times and the fourth time costs 100 piety). Maybe also replace the reduced resistance penalty with a reduction in max HP by 5, making it less abuseable at lower levels. Then only award lifesteal piety on a kill (e.g., kill an enemy with a lifesteal attack and gain +4 or +5 piety instead of the usual +2).

Also, to make Dracul -> Glowing Guardian conversions more feasible, perhaps GG's Cleansing boon could remove lifesteal (and perhaps grant some piety in return if you have lifesteal when you use it, as GG is glad that you have repented your wicked ways)?

I was pretty stoked when I figured out how to "exploit" Drac as a monk for that quest. I mean, I'm sure they'll switch things around, but I kind of view these things as puzzles anyway. I don't think you can finish one that without religion anyway... at first I was trying to get enough mana to kill the goo thing, but Mysteria is fickle. Remembered Drac will give you mana, only ended up doing the lifesteal trick by accident.

Having said that, I still haven't actually finished it, because it keeps crashing. I guess I should be less hung up on trying to kill Super Meat Man at level 1. There seems to be some variable that eventually crashes it. Fine, I'll max my lifesteal and level up.